Nostalgia & History > Forty Friday: Ever get confused when trackside?

Hmmm, was the stencil guy playing a trick on his bosses? Or the CN guy broke in to play a prank on CP? Of course, probably just an off-lease pickup by CN. Seen on the EB Toronto-Allentown manifest at CP-Belt in Reading, PA, about 25 years ago...

JG

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You're on the right track about 'lease return' or something like that. I'll try to keep it brief. In 1978 CP got a few orders of SD40-2, within which were 16 units owned by Ontario Hydro to handle coal train service for electrical generating plants. They were assigned to CP Rail, but CP eventually purchased five of them on April 1, 1986 (5787-5789, 5863, 5864). The remaining 11 units were transferred to CN, and got numbers in the high 5300 series, above the ex-MoPac SD40-2 CN had acquired. The assumption is that CN got the coal contract. CN eventually retired all of these except the 5391, on April 24, 2000. CP purchased these on October 17, 2000, leaving them in the CN numbers, and also carrying CN's classification as GF-30 units (General Motors, Freight, 3000 hp). CN had never repainted them, just covered up the CP Rail or System identification and reclassified them. CP in turn eventually got rid of the CN noodle, but only in some cases put on a CP identifier, non-standard font. If you made it through all this, I'd love to know what date your photo is from. It's a nice, historical shot. Thanks.
Fred

Interesting, so this unit could be CP-owned but not yet restenciled (or whatever). Thanks for the details.

feclark Wrote:
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 If you made it
> through all this, I'd love to know what date your
> photo is from. It's a nice, historical shot.
> Thanks.
> Fred

I did, and it's quite complicated but thanks for the additional info. Sorry, but this slide was processed by one of the local labs in Manhattan which never put dates on the slides but I'm guessing in the 2000-2002 timeframe and obviously after NS moved the 40T/41T train pair from the old LV/CNJ routing south of Scranton to Sunbury and Harrisburg...

JG